


Bait and Switch

by Kayka



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Fantasy, Humor, Sexual Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-05
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-12-10 12:54:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/786260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kayka/pseuds/Kayka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sarah Williams and the Goblin King share a problem. Jareth is delighted. Sarah... Well, Sarah, not so much. Sareth. One-shot. Not for young goblin eyes. Or adult goblin eyes. Or anyone's eyes, possibly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bait and Switch

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Do you think that if I established two mutually exclusive possible states, e.g. ownership versus non-ownership, and put the rights to Labyrinth in a box with a diabolical mechanism that it would follow the same principle as the Schroedinger's cat paradox? Damn. Me neither.
> 
> A/N: If you're waiting on an update of one of my other two fics, I apologize. Really, I do. I didn't have this Idea so much as it ran up behind me, rugby tackled me to the ground, and whispered in my ear, 'stop everything else you're writing and write me immediately.' Then after imparting its primary message, the Idea rapidly degenerated into mutterings of, 'Don't forget crotch. Gratuitous crotch. Crotch all around. Boobs couldn't hurt either.' I obliged because I the Idea wouldn't let me write anything else, but it turned into this monster. I swear my brain is defective. This is your final warning. Turn back before it's too late.

At approximately eight thirty-nine a.m., Sarah Williams threw back the covers.

_Hmm, breezier than normal._

The woman turned a groggy eye to see what she had decided to wear to bed because she didn't remember going to sleep in the-

"What. The. Actual. Fuck."

They were her words but not her voice. This voice was deeper, more masculine, and wrong. _All_ _wrong_.

She pulled the blanket back over herself and glanced around her bedroom. Nothing else _seemed_ amiss.

Sarah flipped the blanket up and looked again.

"No…"

Once more covered. Count to ten.

And then off again.

"No. This isn't-"

Sarah sprang out of bed and landed in an ungainly heap. Her center of gravity was off and her appendages weren't quite where she thought they ought to be. She gingerly pulled herself off the floor to consult her mirror.

"Holy shit!"

This was not how she envisioned seeing the Goblin King naked.

Not that she ever would actually admit to thinking about seeing the Goblin King naked.

But were Sarah to imagine a scenario in which she might be privy to the Goblin King's nakedness, this was not the way it would have happened.

She would not _be_ the Goblin King, for starters.

Sarah was not sure how long she stood there gaping at the male the mirror reflected back at her.

A flutter of magic pulled her from her dazed contemplations. A disconcerting racket followed: it was the nasal way her voice sounded when played back on a tape recorder, but with a distinctly British lilt that she had spent hours practicing in her younger days. Only now it sounded authentic.

And rather than a recording, her voice was live and in person.

Sarah spun around, "You!"

Sarah's body brushed past her to access the mirror while smoothing down the excess fabric on the oversized tee-shirt that Sarah remembered wearing to bed.

"Oh, I have _curves_. This is lovely!"

Jareth, the Body Thief, because Sarah was convinced that if she had _his_ body he must have stolen _hers_ , proceeded to cup her hijacked breasts and squish them together.

And despite the oddity of the situation, she felt justifiably annoyed on her body's behalf.

"Stop that! Quit _playing_ with them!"

"But I've never had breasts before! They're made for playing!"

"No, they _aren't_!"

Sarah slapped her- his!- hands away.

"Spoilsport. At least _I'm_ getting good use out of them." He prodded _them_ again for emphasis. "Unlike their previous owner. They're excellent for stress relief." He squished them together again, tilting her head as if to contemplate _them_ more thoroughly. "And Boggling Goblin _knows_ you need stress relief."

Momentarily angered speechless, Sarah gaped while trying to jumpstart her brain into forming a coherent, indignant retort.

And like all children with a brand new toy, Jareth was distracted by another of the mythical special features; he started contorting his new face in all manner of exciting expressions.

" _Ooh._ Sarah, _look_. "

Jareth pulled Sarah's body's bottom lip between her body's teeth and gave Sarah a smoldering stare by way of the mirror. Overall the effect was quite seductive, and Sarah had no idea her physique could quite manage that level of come-hither. When she tried something similar in the past, the expression fell flat.

It was possibly Jareth's innate personality leaking through, but Sarah comforted herself that he had to have _something_ to work with. It had nothing to do with the fact that if he could make anyone's possessed body look sexy, such knowledge would be a terrible blow to her self esteem.

The bastard had managed to distract her and was now half-twisted, nightshirt pulled up about the waist, inspecting her rear with an appreciative eye.

" _Jareth_! Stop that! What the hell is going on? I'm- _You-_!"

Jareth finally turned to regard Sarah, his arms crossed under his- _her!_ \- cleavage and gaze running over his proper body admiringly.

"I must say this is a truly wonderful angle. My typical perspective does not do me justice."

_Consummate narcissist_.

"Would you mind turning in ninety degree intervals?"

In that moment, Sarah remembered that she was naked, in Jareth's body, in front of Jareth himself. Her mind was torn between whether she should attempt to cover herself and throttling him for whatever it was he had done to cause this to happen.

In the end, she did neither. Surely he was accustomed to staring at himself, and she worried about him maintaining her proper form's modesty more than her his. He obviously had none.

Sarah was also rather fond of her real body and did not want to see it come to harm whether she was in possession of it at the moment or not.

So. Middle-ground. Being naked, despite, or perhaps because of, the present company, made her feel horribly vulnerable.

"Yes, actually, I do mind. I'm- bathroom."

Sarah grabbed the nearest pair of pants, a cat-printed, pink pair of flannel pajama bottoms that had been a dreaded gift from her stepmother, and fled.

'Fled' was perhaps a tad generous use of the term, as the woman was still unused to directing Jareth's body.

A more apt description would be to say that Sarah gangled to the bathroom.

Jareth seemed to be having absolutely no problems piloting her body. It might have something to do with his owl shape-shifting thing. Regardless, it really wasn't fair that she seemed to be the only one suffering between the two of them.

Sarah really did need to use the toilet in addition to getting dressed; her morning ablutions and bodily functions had been completely derailed. She was reaching the point where she needed to _go,_ or there would be dire consequences for the linoleum.

She didn't want to have to _clean_ on top of everything else.

But succumbing to this body's needs meant she would need to touch _it_.

Which meant she would have to acknowledge _its_ existence.

Which really just freaked her out because _it_ was _his_.

And she also wasn't quite sure how to aim.

_No big deal, Sarah. We can do this. Just pretend that this is completely normal, and we pee standing up all the time._

She took a deep breath and went for it.

A near miss and a bit of creative cursing later, Sarah more or less successfully finished her business. Next time, she was sitting down. Dangly boy-bits be damned.

_Now, next challenge._

"Right. Pants."

She held the pink monstrosities out in front of her. With any luck, and the drawstring, they would fit his skinny ass. They'd be a bit short, but there was really no helping that. It wasn't like she had a magical wardrobe stocked with men's clothes or anything.

There was also the slight, vindictive amusement of forcing the Goblin King into unflattering attire. She needed to grab her Polaroid to document this. For later. She had a feeling she would need a bit of blackmail material once this was all said and done. And surely such attire would offend his vanity.

Both legs in and pajama bottoms most of the way up, Sarah realized that she had a little- big-

Suffice to say that Sarah had a problem: she had absolutely no idea what to do with _it_. And she really didn't want to have to ask him.

_Does it go up or right or-?_

"Really, now, Precious, two shakes is business, but three is beyond playing with it. What could you possibly be doing in there?"

Sarah gripped the bathroom counter, heart in her throat.

That jerk had snuck up on her, but he thankfully remained on the other side of the bathroom door. And she had not fallen over which, for a precarious moment of hopping in not-quite-where-they-ought-to-be-for-wearing-botto ms, had been a very real possibility.

"Just give me a damned minute!"

Frustrated, Sarah yanked her pants the rest of the way up and grimaced.

Apparently, _left_ was not the correct choice _at all_.

She scrunched up Jareth's face and found the courage to arrange herself more comfortably.

After a few moments of fiddling and fidgeting, she ultimately gave finding-a-comfortable-position-for-Little-Jareth up as a bad job. She scoured his hands under hot water for the better part of a minute. This, too, Sarah decided was pointless, but she was too weirded out by inadvertently fondling his junk to care about the wasted time of washing hands that did not strictly belong to her.

Sarah finally opened the bathroom door only to find him poised leisurely against the frame.

"Twelve minutes a forty-seven seconds. My, my, Sarah. I'm more than willing to allow you certain liberties with my body should you extend me the same courtesy with yours."

The blush spread rapidly and hotly.

"That's not! I wasn't!"

Sarah had not known that her face was capable of producing such an indulgent, shit-eating grin. And she'd never quite managed to get her eyebrows to waggle so… so _… suggestively._

The strangled growl was a bit high pitched for his body, but Sarah thought she got the message across.

"Come, come, Sarah-mine. There's no shame in indulging in _pleasure_. In fact," He trailed off, his face lit up as though he just had a truly wonderful idea. Sarah knew the street address of the gutter where this was headed.

"No. Absolutely not. You will _not_ be having sex in my body. With company _or_ alone."

He whined. Sarah had to admit that the sound made for a vaguely grating annoyance. She suddenly felt bad for all her angsty teenage years where that had been just short of her default tone.

"But I want to know what it's like! I've never been on _this_ end of it."

He looked utterly dejected, and Sarah almost felt bad. But then she remembered why he looked dejected and resisted the strong urge to box his ears. Suddenly, his forlorn visage transformed.

The toothy grin was blinding, triumphant, and altogether wrong gracing her face.

"You have no power over me!"

_Ow_. Six little words actually caused visceral pain. It felt like an old hurt, dim with rounded edges. Not enough to be much more than a dull, throbbing ache, but _it was plain rude._ She idly wondered if this, or something like it, was what he experienced all those years ago.

_But he just triggered it on purpose._ _Jerk_.

"Can you behave like an adult for five minutes so that we can figure this out?"

The devious grin had not left his visage. It still looked strange on her face. He lowered her voice an octave so that it issued forth seductive and sultry. "Ah but you _like_ _it_ when I get under your skin."

"That's so not tr-" the word constricted in sarah's throat, unable to escape.

"Don't try to deny it. I'm in your head. I know." Her voice was normal that time. _Well, more normal, given the definitely-not-normal accent_.

"But it's nnnng! Jareth!"

Jareth was disdainfully inspecting the paint job on Sarah's nails, whilst trying and failing to hide a smirk.

"Oh, is my own biology working against you there, sweet? Find you can't claim that which isn't _true_?"

_Scratch that. He hadn't tried to hide that smirk at all._

" _What a pity_."

Sarah had read somewhere in the deep annals of mythological history available from the children's section of her local library that the Fae were not supposed to be able to lie. Not that she had it on good authority that Jareth _was_ some sort of Fae. Nevertheless, she never thought that it went as far as being _physiologically impossible_.

_Well_ , _damn_. _Sarah Williams, thine entire existence is bound by absurdity_.

Sarah tried her best glare at him. Then she realized something was off, and her faced dropped comically. Or rather, it would have been comical had she been able to see it. At the moment she just felt vaguely panicked.

She closed the left eye and everything appeared normal out of the right, when she did the opposite, however-

"What the hell is wrong with your eye?"

"There's nothing _wrong_ with it," he half-shouted, indignant, "You simply aren't used to _Seeing_. Your fragile human mind is trying to protect you."

"From what? I was _seeing_ just fine a minute ago."

Colors were washed out and faded. Edges shimmered in and out of existence. But it was more than that, edges and forms and possibilities shimmered in and out of _time_. She really didn't know how she missed it before. But now that she had noticed the oddity in vision, it was all she could focus on.

"Before, your mind realized that it had no context via which to process the information it was receiving and was content to ignore it. However, now it seems as though you're adjusting to my magic, or the magic required to See at the very least. How curious."

_You're no match for me, Sarah._ The words came unbidden. And with all the possibilities that were tumbling through her vision, she could nearly attest to that. If this was _Seeing_ , it was bloody awful, and she wanted a refund.

"Is it always like this? I think… I think I'm going to be sick."

His expression was something akin to concern, at least it was usually concern when she made that face. That was her concerned face. He could very well just be constipated. She _had_ been indulging a bit in cheeses lately.

_No use in turning down a nice Brie, after all._

"Sit down. Close your eyes and focus only on my voice."

Sarah did as commanded, and felt her former fingertips at her current temples. He murmured things, nonsensical things. Soon enough the nauseating headache dissipated, and the Goblin King drew away.

"Try now."

When she opened his eyes again, the world had righted itself. For the most part. Colors were still grayish and dull, but everything had stopped popping in and out of time.

"What did you do?"

"I limited your perception. It's a temporary solution, nothing more."

"How temporary?"

"An hour, if luck is on our side."

"Can't you just stop time and fix everything?"

"Time can never be stopped, Sarah, simply reordered."

Well, there went that hope. At least whoever did this had been considerate enough to choose a weekend.

"Do you at least know why this has happened and how to fix it? I want my body back, if it's all the same to you."

"Oh, right." Sarah's arms crossed in what would have been an intimidating manner on the Goblin King. Sarah's physique however, failed to project quite the same presence.

_Might have something to do with the cuddly owl tee._

"Sarah Williams, I'm terribly disappointed in you. Do you have any idea what you've done?"

_Wait, what?_

"Me? I haven't done anything! Don't you dare try to pin this on me, buster. This has _you_ written all over it."

Jareth shrugged.

"Oh, then, no. I haven't the foggiest as to who or why."

_Fat lot of good he is._

Sarah flung herself dramatically back on her bed.

"I'm doomed to be stuck in a man's body for the rest of my life."

"I never said that. I know how to fix this."

Sarah sat back up.

Hope glimmered. _Or Jareth did a faulty job of quick fixing his body's eye._

"Really?"

"But you're not going to like it. Well actually, you'll like it quite a lot."

_Oh. Trying this angle again, are we?_

Hope crashed and burned like a hydrogen filled dirigible.

"You can't be serious."

"It's not the only means, but physical intimacy is by far the most likely to succeed and the most expedient course of action."

"Convenient more like. Are you sure you didn't have anything to do with this?"

Her face split into a foxlike grin that put Sarah on edge, though she was clueless as to when she had begun to relax in the first place.

"Oh, Sarah-mine, had I anything to do with our predicament, you can rest assured sex would have been the only solution."

"Uh-uh. Nothing doing. Tell me the alternatives. Go."

His sneer was petulant.

"You are determined to eradicate any joy I might find in life."

"Yeah, yeah. You can put that on your epitaph. But I have fifty minutes or less before your eye goes wonky again, and I'd like for you to have to deal with it rather than me. Now, talk."

"Selfish, spiteful creature."

"Please, Goblin King."

He sighed. Deeply.

"Since you asked so pleasantly, how can I refuse? Our alternative is to go on an epic quest in which we single out and interrogate the perpetrator as to his motives. We examine what magic he used and reverse our predicament based on that."

Epic quests sounded exhausting, and would likely mean a long, drawn out adventure underground. Trapped in Jareth's body.

She had finals to worry about next week.

"Or?"

For a second he looked as though he was going to tell her that those were the only two options, but at last he grudgingly opened her mouth to admit a third.

"A kiss."

"That's it? Why did you let me waste the last half hour of my life running around as you, then?"

"It's not as simple as it sounds, and without knowledge of the impetus it is far from guaranteed. A kiss could very well just exacerbate the situation, and I can't perform the necessary magic at the moment."

"But you just!" Sarah waved intelligibly at Jareth's eye.

"While I am unable to access magic with your body alone, it is possible to channel it through my own."

_But he wasn't here when I woke up this morning_. She was sure of that. Quite sure. Moderately sure _. But if he can't do magic-_

"How did you even get here?"

He pulled a matching pendant to the one he normally wore out from the confines of her shirt. Only, the colors were reversed: gold where the one Sarah wore was silver. And its center was silver instead of the burnished gold of his true body's own.

"When separated, they seek out their mate. The pendants respond only to their monarchs." He said by way of explanation.

She sincerely hoped he wasn't implying that the necklace had responded to _her_. He _had_ to mean it was associated with his consciousness within her form. The former was not something she felt ready to acknowledge, much less accept. She was too afraid of the possible implications to ask.

So, Sarah decided to hop back from the fire into the frying pan.

"Okay. Kissing. What do we have to do?"

Her body's nose wrinkled.

"Are you sure we can't just have sex? It would be far less taxing than trying to give you a crash course in magic."

" _Jareth_ ," Sarah hissed through clenched teeth.

"See? You're already halfway there. That was surprisingly erotic. I'm-"

"Magic. Crash course. Go."

Sarah recognized that look as one she had given many times before: put upon exasperation.

"We need a crystal. Give me my hands. It will be far simpler if I direct you rather than teach you."

Her form's smaller hands cradled his body's larger ones and in no time at all, a telltale tingle heralded the formation of a perfect crystal. It had taken absolutely no effort on Sarah's part. Jareth, on the other hand, looked exhausted.

"Are you okay?"

"Worried, precious?"

"Of course nnnn-"

The truth filter strikes again. _How inconvenient_.

Sarah really hated the smug satisfaction dancing across her own face.

"Not to worry, love. I will fine be momentarily. Directing magic takes incredible force of will. Luckily we both have such in spades."

Sarah cradled the crystal in both hands, as Jareth slid hers up Sarah's arms to loop languorously around his former neck.

"So. So, do we just have to kiss now, or what?"

"I'm trying to have a moment, Sarah. This won't work, otherwise," he huffed.

"Oh. Right. I'll just-"

She was cut off by pure, dazzling feeling. He was right in saying that this would not be a simple kiss; it was _everything and much, much more_.

Sarah suddenly felt warm. Hot even. And worse still, magic sizzled through the air and her every nerve felt lit aflame.

Slowly, the wonderful and overwhelming sensation faded, though it did not dissipate entirely.

Sarah pulled away but did not open her eyes.

"Did it work?"

That was her voice and she controlled it. She felt confident enough to peek. Jareth was Jareth. And going by the staccato beat of her heart, Sarah was Sarah.

"Yes. Yes, I believe it did. Pity, that. I was hoping for-"

At that moment, Sarah did not care about whatever inappropriately pervy thing had been about to spew from his mouth. She was exultant and kissed the king again on impulse.

"On the other hand, this could work."

"Don't go getting any ideas Goblin King. That one only happened because I was delirious with happiness."

"I believe we are past such formalities, given the circumstances, _my Sarah_."

Her name sounded sinfully wonderful when turned over on his tongue.

"I really must endeavor to make you delirious more often."

Little Jareth wholeheartedly agreed, and Sarah became conscious of the fact that at some point her body had straddled Jareth's lap.

_Retreat! Retreat!_

Sarah scrambled away and even managed to land standing up, which was much better than her expectation of her rear abruptly meeting the carpet.

"Yeah. So it's all better now. I'm me. You're you. You can get back to whatever it is you should be doing."

He cocked his head, calculating. Sarah wondered just what his magic eye was telling him.

"Of course. Until next time, my Sarah."

She was left to halfheartedly complain to the shower of glitter that any sort of next time had better not impinge on her natural state of being.

It was only several hours later, as Sarah changed out of her nightshirt, that she realized she was still wearing his golden pendant.

Aside from feeling absurdly warm to the touch, it seemed familiar. Had he worn it before, at the end of her last true adventure?

She was content to let the subject lie for now. The fact that he left the necklace in her care gave her grossly giddy-making assurance that it would not be six or so years before she saw him again.

Sarah felt positively bubbly with happiness. That is, until she tried and failed to take the pendant off and found that she most definitely _could not_.

But that is another story to be told at another time.

And like any good lopsided fairytale, that was that. All was settled. Sarah was comfortably back in her own skin and totally not practicing sexy poses for future reference in front of her mirror. The Goblin King was safely banished back to his own body and kingdom presumably doing whatever it was Goblin Monarchs did to pass the time. And no one's virtue was compromised. A truly productive day.

That night, Sarah snuggled into her twin bed, dressed smartly in comfy, modestly-cut pajamas. Though not the pink, cat-print ones. While Jareth had left them behind when he poofed away, those bottoms needed washed. Or burned.

Sarah drifted off to dreams of indulging her latent destructive tendencies on unsuspecting apparel and giving fairytale monarchs well deserved tongue-lashings. And not the sort of tongue-lashings that could in any sense be considered fun for aforementioned fairytale monarchs.

It was the best night's sleep she had had in ages.

The next morning at approximately eight thirty-nine a.m., Sarah Williams threw back the covers.

"Oh, _hell_ no."

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Yes, not a terribly original premise in general, but I thought it and couldn't stop giggling to myself. I blame too much Doctor Who (I don't know. I might know. Yeah.) and too little sleep. Sorry. Brain bleach is stage right.
> 
> Also, just some advice: don't plop your characters into a body of the opposite gender and try to write about it. I can no longer pronoun. I am still terribly confused. Who let me near a computer? My brain hurts.
> 
> This will remain a one-shot for now. It might become a full story of its own later because there are more things I'd like to develop and do with it, but I can't have three active stories. I'd cry and nothing would ever get written ever.


End file.
